My visit to Kenyatta Hospital: ‘A day I’ll never forget!’

When fourth-grader Midy Michelle, a student at Missions of Hope’s Baba Dogo school in Nairobi, Kenya, landed in Kenyatta Hospital with a broken leg, it was a given that members of the school staff would visit her. And REACH intern Olivia Millar, who’s serving with the school’s Community Health Evangelism program this summer, got to go along for the adventure.

“One of my favorite parts about Missions of Hope is the emphasis on relational connection,” said Olivia. “Samuel, the spiritual development officer at Baba Dogo, and Nicholas, a school social worker, saw it as a necessity and a privilege to visit Midy in the hospital and pray face-to-face with her and her family.”

The threesome made the two-hour trek on public transportation vans called “matatus” to the country’s largest public hospital in downtown Nairobi to see Midy.

“Midy will have to stay in the hospital for at least six weeks until her leg is healed, and she is able to walk again,” explained Olivia. “It was moving to see her whole face light up when she saw that she had visitors from her school.

“The room she is in houses seven other children with various injuries,” added Olivia. “We chatted with the other patients and families and prayed for healing over each child.”

On the way back to the main Missions of Hope center, Olivia walked through the streets of Nairobi and witnessed the hustle and bustle of the paths packed with people and markets.

“It was eye-opening to experience being visibly different than every other person around me,” said Olivia. “I am thankful that being in Kenya has given me new perspectives of racial and ethnic differences. I am also so moved to see the way that God’s handprint is so beautifully evident in so many ways through diverse people, cultures and places. This day at the Kenyatta Hospital is one that I will never forget!”